I feel cheated. This book was not as advertised, about the boy used in a children's book and the chaos his life was in consequence. Most of the book was about another character altogether and her problems. The author's family was never fleshed out. The timeline was all over the place. It was hard to figure out at what time the action was happening. I finished the book but wished I had quit long ago. Overall very disappointing. Mister Toppit is gripping, compelling and for the most part well-written. It is also dark, grim, harrowing, creepy and all-round depressing. There is nary a character to like or admire. Elton took AA Milne's son Christopher Robin Milne's resentment at having himself immortalised as a characterised child as the idea for his book. The main character, Luke Hayman, is similarly cast as Luke Hayseed in his father's books The Hayseed Chronicles, which become a Potter-esque global phenonmenon after an implausible series of events is set in motion, beginning with the untimely death of his father. It's really about the very public collapse of family already haunted by a sordid and pathetic past. We see everyone through Luke's eyes, but Luke himself is largely character-free - resentful of the spotlight and continually at the mercy of a string of overbearing women, but otherwise merely "a watchful observer". Luke's father, Arthur Hayman, escapes as the only blameless character of the book, but only by being largely absent. Luke's mother Martha is reserved to the point of being removed, demanding, philandering and haunted. I actually quite liked his sister, Rachal, whose insecurities are the opposite from Luke's - she is completely absent from the Hayseed books. This leads her into a spiral of drugs and insanity, but while undoubtedly foolish and naive, she is at least sweet, harmless, blameless, and charming in her own way. The real hatred in this book is reserved for the sundry hangers-on in the Hayseed story - Lila, the book's illustrator, a pushy, demanding, revolting woman who is nothing but a burden to everyone she encounters, and Laurie, a stranger who happens to be there at Arthur's death, and who is a grotesque characature who lurches through the novel, simpering her way from pity-enducing nobody, to hardly believable Holywood star, with her own sordid family past. If not likable, the characters are vivid and evoke strong reactions, and there is certainly nothing boring about this book.
What do You think about Mr. Toppit (2010)?
Boek blijft boeien. Plot vond ik tegenvallen, het blijft namelijk wazig
—felixis
An ok read. Slow start, interesting middle, disappointing end.
—indigomagenta
